Liberty is not just a word.Even the ACLU gets that.

By D.C.

 Glenn Greenwald has an excellent piece on Salon today,Sept.7,The ACLU on Obama and core liberties.In it he discusses a just released ACLU report,on the 10th anniversary of 9/11,and the on going loss of liberties by American citizens as a result of the "War on Terror".

 Just to be clear with my readers.Greenwald is a progressive.He has all kinds of big shot lefty street cred.But I respect his work in this area.He is just as critical of Obama as he was of Bush on this subject.I don't expect the liberal media to do much reporting on this story,neither does Greenwald.

 The ACLU report is highly critical of the Obama administration's continuation of the Bush/Cheney policies in the "War on Terror".In some cases,even a great expansion of these Bush/Cheney policies.

 One example of this from the ACLU report is the legal concept the Bush administration used to imprison American citizens without due process.Bush claimed under his "war powers" that he could declare an American citizen an "enemy combatant" and detain that person indefinitely without any due process.

 When Bush was the president,the left went bananas over this.The ACLU report shows that Obama has used this same legal argument to justify assassinating American citizens far from the battlefield.

 Eventually,the American citizen who was detained by Bush got his day in court. Once Obama whacks you and your dead,that day in court doesn't mean so much.

 I'm not going to argue if these American citizens,who have been proclaimed "enemy combatants" by the president,are good or bad people.To be honest,they probably had it coming to them.The argument is whether the president has the power to just proclaim that an American citizen is an "enemy combatant" and then detain or kill that citizen without any of their unalienable rights of due process.

 Remember.We are talking about American citizens here,not foreigners.It is very important that you understand this distinction.I could care less as to the number of bullets in bin Laden's head it took to kill him,the more the better.We are discussing the rights of Americans under the Constitution here.

 Right now,today,you might say,"Well,these are bad people,we should do away with them,screw the law." What happens in say 30 years and the president uses this power to declare his political rivals "enemy combatants" and have those folks whacked?

 Regardless of party,the president never gives away powers ceded to him (or her) by the people.It is up to the people to take these powers back.None of these executive powers are in the Constitution.We,the people,have given them away to the office of the executive.

Greenwald writes about these presidential powers;
 "the primary cause of this Bush-Obama continuity is the vigorous embrace by both Presidents of the same theory of war and Terrorism -- the unlimited global battlefield and the President's resulting unconstrained power to act anywhere in the world without limits -- which was once so controversial during the Bush presidency but has now become mainstream, bipartisan consensus."

Greenwald calls out his lefty buddies with rather strong language;
 "During the Bush era, the actions and condemnations of the ACLU received ample positive attention from progressives. That, of course, is no longer true, and this damning report will likely be ignored in most of those circles, just as this truly remarkable comment from the ACLU's Executive Director has been.  And, as usual, anyone urging that attention be paid to these facts will be met with demands that eyes be diverted instead to how scary Sarah Palin Christine O'Donnell Michele Bachmann Rick Perry is, and then this will all blissfully fade away in a cloud of partisan electioneering even with the election more than a year away.
Either way, this creeping unchecked authoritarianism marches forward unabated, and is now -- rather than the province of the right-wing GOP -- fully bipartisan consensus.  I really don't understand how progressives think they'll be taken seriously the next time there is a GOP President and they try to resurrect their feigned concern for these matters; they'll be every bit as credible as conservatives who pretend to be deficit-warriors and defenders of restrained government only when the other party is in power."

 Let me quickly summarize Mr.Greenwald's comments.You lefties are just a bunch of dam hypocrites.You never believed in any of your anti Bush crap.It was all just liberal hypocrisy with no substance at all.

 The libertarian in me agrees with liberals like Greenwald that things such as the "Patriot Act" and the Dept.of Homeland Security are not good things for the liberties of free citizens.I see these things as unconstitutional power grabs by the federal government.

 These things only increase the centralization of power in the federal government.The founding fathers would have never endorsed such powers for the federal government.The Constitution makes it clear that their faith is in the people,not in the government.

 The conservative in me justifies my libertarian beliefs by telling me that these things are just massive expansions in the size and scope of government.Which carries with it a massive and unnecessary expenditure of not only tax payer dollars but,in this case,the blood of our people.

 We on the right can debate whether this whole "War on Terror" is right or wrong.The fact that Obama has just carried on these unending wars tells me his answer to this question.I do know the following things are true.

 Obama has no foreign policy.He just took over the Bush foreign policy and increased it.If you were a person who agreed with Bush's foreign policy,then you must agree with Obama's foreign policy.Because they are one and the same.

 It is OK to change your mind about Bush,and it's OK to change your mind about Obama.It is OK to change your mind about many things.

The truth of liberty is not something you can change your mind about.

 Our founding fathers understood that man has a God given right to self determine the course of his own life.They understood this was at the core of what it means to be a human being,the concept of liberty.They wrote a thing called the Constitution about this matter.

When I think about liberty,the Constitution and the original intent of the founders,I always ask myself would the founding fathers approve of us now? You should ask yourself this same question.